Keith Humphreys offers a brief history of the “treatment” and some lessons:

…when the next wonder drug for addiction comes along (and it will), we must not yield to our powerful collective desire to believe before we have hard evidence of effectiveness from disinterested, respected sources. The simpler, faster and more miraculous-seeming the cure, the greater should be our skepticism.

There is a worrisome vulnerability in the US FDA’s new drug approval process. As was the case with another would-be ‘miracle cure’—ultra-rapid opiate-detoxification—a manufacturer was able to market an untested treatment protocol to addicted patients because the components of the treatment protocol had been previously FDA-approved for the treatment of other disorders.

Independent scientific research on addiction is essential for public health and safety.